60 MEMOIR OF 1)11 WRIGHT. 



these people are able to earn enough to support them- 

 selves in idleness for the remainder of the year ; but 

 this, perhaps, affords only another modification of a 

 principle which is common to human nature. In fa- 

 vourable seasons our own artisans are known to work 

 only so many days of the week as will enable them 

 to devote the remainder to idleness and relaxation. 

 The machinery of the olive-press was of a most im- 

 perfect description, similar in form, but inferior in 

 power, to that which was then used in Scotland, in the 

 manufacture of linseed oil. The flocks of sheep in the 

 neighbourhood are spoken of as highly valuable ; and 

 great attention appears to have been paid to the pro- 

 cess of irrigation, by which the value of the pasture 

 was materially enhanced. 



Within a circuit, of which Arcos was the centre, 

 the radius being equal to six English miles, the 

 British officers were allowed to ramble, and to en- 

 joy the amusements of fishing and shooting. In the 

 sluggish and muddy waters of the Guadalete, they 

 found abundance of eels and mullet ; and on the banks, 

 a rich variety of aquatic plants, for the commencement 

 of a new herbarium, Dr Wright having lost the va- 

 luable collection which he had brought with him from 

 England, on his transhipment from the Morant to 

 the Bourgogne. On the one side, the mountains of 

 Grenada encroached on their allotted boundary, and af- 

 forded considerable variety to the sports of the field. 

 On the low grounds they had a great variety of wild 

 fowl, with hares and rabbits in abundance ; but the 

 sportsmen of the party found their chief amusement 



